Encounter; Rise of the Savant.

[Orphen]

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Whispers wafted through the channels of holonet as Orphen had been observing the streams of information at his desk, sifting through the coding with some use of his own personal skill in Mechu Deru in an attempt to harness his capabilities to such a point that he would be able to use it to interact with Data as a hacking process... though, it appeared as it stood, with his own level of expertise, that he did not currently have the skill, nor the power to be able to command that kind of force, though, perhaps in days to come, he would find that power, and really begin to show off what he was made of. It wasn't until a particular stream of information caught his eye. Immediately focusing on it, while the chatter of the information network rang in his ears, channels of slicers trading information about new software and firewalls as well as encryption and ciphers which would need to be cracked for them to continue to keep on top of the more recent security, while in other corners of the conversation other slicers talked on the current events of those deemed as legends by inner circles. Orphen was hoping to get into those banks, but, it seemed that, something nice was finally coming his way. Looking to the information stream which had caught his eye, a standard encrypted message had been sent from one location to another, while that was not a problem for himself, his own personal software picking at the standard issue seemingly Sith transmission passing through republic space from Antar to Corellia, more specifically from one of the moons of Antar, as much of Antar itself was un-inhabitable.

After stripping the message of its encryption, the message seemed rather simple, it was a status report of something that seemed to be being built there... Orphen didn't like the sound of that, though, tracing the signal back, he began to perform a little bit of research, it seemed that on the third moon, one which supported life, but was largely uninhabited had been supporting what seemed to be a small experimental factory, normally considered independent, though, as recent transgressions would highlight, it seemed they were not as neutral as once thought. The Company subsidiary of Corellian shipyards was taken in, and re-purposed as a strong of one of many arms development factories to produce new and promising prototype weapons for the one sith, and, as they now seemed to be largely getting closer and closer to Sith space with the lines of battle seeming to ever expand in favor of the One Sith, the company had become a tad more brazen in their communications... From what Orphen could ascertain from here, they were developing some kind of unmanned droid, probably a war class droid which was in its preliminary stages of testing, but had yet to have any armor or major weapons attached. Orphen smiled, now, if he was able to get his hands on their data, as well as their prototype, then he would be set, with a powerful new prototype weapon to build up and create, and if he could not get the weapon itself, he would be able to get the plans so that he would be able to make his own, or employ Greyson industries to employ them for him...

Turning around and kicking off his chair, heading for the shipyard, he boarded his own little ship, jetting off into the distance as he set his course for the location, though, knowing that the message was being sent to the one Sith, he sent a message of his own back to the Republic, telling his master where he would be going, and what the purpose of his self employed message would be, they had been fine with him conducting research before, and this, well, this seemed to be the natural next step, as much as Orphen would appreciate the backup if he was somehow captured...

Though, unknown to him, the company was a little more onto it than he had taken for granted, as the message was picked up going through alliance space channels to get to Corellia, the notification that it had been intercepted would also reach the One Sith, prompting action...

After an extended time in researching his destination, he discovered that the facility was rather old, but had a name for using good quallity materials and parts with the construction of itself and with its machines, though they were never the prettiest things, aesthetics were something which could be changed with a little bit of work and mechanical know how. Touching down not some few clicks from the facility, Orphen jumped out of the cock-pit of his ship, booting up the AI DCD on his left arm as Alpha came to life, greeting Orphen happily as the young Jedi began to tell the AI what exactly was going on, using that time he took hi own littler personal inventory of what he was carrying, his pistols as usual, his light-sabers as he had finally upgraded from his shoto, his drones were at his back and Alpha was with him, also, his new weapon, the D-pattern Aethim would need a test run. In addition he bought along the classic Savant data-pad for hacking into the building... Without much further adieu, he began to make his way for the building, under the cover of darkness as the moon had rotated into its dark phase, a state which would hold for at least upwards on 6 hours before it would return to daylight again...

This was the beginning...

[member="Rose Kuhn"]

 

[Rose Kuhn]

[member="Orphen"]

Rose was already inside the building.

She stood tall, her eyes shifting, her red hair flowing. There was a fresh scar that ran across her stomach, and her face was still flushed red from the incident not two weeks ago. She frowned slightly, unconsciously running her fingers over the scar that was tucked beneath her shirt. The leather jacket that covered her shoulders seemed to weigh heavily on her, more heavily than before.

So much had happened to her lately, so many things.

She had encountered pirates, smugglers, criminals.

They had all touched her life in some way, all left a vicious scar, and not just in the physical sense. Again she touched the scar on her belly, running her fingers over the rigid skin. She winced slightly as she remembered the sinking of the blade stabbing into her, the cold metal feeling as though it had fused with her flesh. Her eyes closed, and she tried to steel herself against the onslaught of bile in her throat.

“Mrs. Kuhn.”

Her hair whipped around, bright blue glacial eyes snapping open to look at the man that had spoken. Lips thinned as she observed the rat like foreman of the factory, his eyes looking down at her in an almost leering fashion.

“They're ready to see you now.”

Rose shook slightly as the man spoke, but she nodded. This was an errand for her, a favor for Lily, nothing more.

 

[Orphen]

Orphen approached the building from the outside, the surface of the moon was a surface of mossy rock formations and small pools, stepping over them was no issue, hopping along them in an attempt to conserve energy, he drew one of his S-5 heavy blaster pistols and set the power to a stunning shot which would do little more than knock an opponent out with the pulse, but not kill them unless the victim was unfortunate enough to have a health condition. Slinking up to one of the many back entrances, Orphen connected a wire from his datapad to a maintenance connection for the door entrance as Alpha began to run basic slicing programs in an attempt to crack the lock, sitting down to a side, Orphen began to reach out with the force through the facility, feeling the coridoors with his power of mechu deru, feeling the surveillance cameras, feeling the wires which ran through the walls, the materials and machines people within carried as he created an almost digital map of the place with his mind, holding the memory at the forefront of his perception, he focused on the surveillance systems, each of the cameras had a visual radiance of about 120 degrees, which, was pretty descent, but they were far from top of the line, each of them needed to swivel, and they recorded the information on live stream to a data-system which was more then likely not manned at such a remote location like this, or, if it was, it would be very lazily manned...

Orphen had no idea that his own little mental scanning of the area might alert another force sensitive to his location.

Taking running steps the Jedi Artificer and Slicer sleuthed through the open door as he gained the green light, looking through the back corridor before he entered and closing it quietly behind him, Alpha chattering in his ear as he began to make his way into the area, pistol at the ready as he hoped that this mission would be a success, the first thing was to ensure that his presence here would not be detected. The last thing he needed was to try to escape here, only to have multiple fighters sent from Corellia or Nearby sith space, and Orphen to have to win a pitch dogfight against seasoned pilots... Suffice to say it would not be his best day were that to be the case. So, he followed where he had mapped the wires of the security cameras to go to, many of them linked up, creating a kind of path through the facility toward the security room, where no doubt, the data was recorded. Ducking through rooms as Alpha now had entry data for the doors, Orphen was able to duck into empty rooms where necessary to avoid the skeleton crew of the independent research base. These areas seemed to be more used for storage and maintenance more than the more active living room dormitories and the work areas which seemed to be many times more lively than the rooms back here, only broken into when someone needed something...

It was not long before he reached the security room, and as far as he knew, he was undetected, taking a cord from his DCD and attaching it to the mainframe of the Data, he had ALPHA deal with the banks, which would allow him to move far more freely within the base, no longer worrying about having his face seen by the cameras. Stage one of his mission was complete, and now, he just needed to make a play for the prototype. Looking through the cameras on the monitors set up in the security room, he could see what his target was, little more than a skeleton, it was about 3.5 to 4 meters tall and many more meters long, some form of bi-pedal war droid, it seemed to be in the later stages of development, but, the issue of taking it was going to be something else entirely, beside the droid there seemed to be a hub where the droids quantum circuity would be hooked up, with the intent of giving it its own AI... If Orphen was able to copy Alphas AI through that mainframe, he would be able to walk the droid out, and the droid would even be able to aid him in combat, many of its mechanical systems seemed in place, and Alpha was already programmed to interface with most basic droid types in order to override their controls... it was a stretch, but it was worth it should it be manageable. Taking the cord back as Alpha had finished disabling the live feed from all of the cameras, playing back the day beforehand in its entirity on a loop so that no obvious loop would be seen, Orphen picked up the pace, gun in hand, making a bee line for the factory floor...

He only hoped this would go as smoothly as it was in his head....

But he had no idea that [member="Rose Kuhn"] was in the building with him... a variable which would undoubtedly create problems, especially if she was able to sense his presence, though Orphen was blind to her, the dark side clouded all those within its grasp...

 

[Rose Kuhn]

[member="Orphen"]

“Stop.” Rose suddenly said in her high Tetan accent, the rat like man suddenly coming to a full halt as Rose spoke. Her eyes shifted slightly, her gaze narrowing and suddenly turning toward the factory.

Something prickled at the edge of her senses, something poked and prodded at her.

She frowned slightly, moving the hand that had previously sat on her belly towards her head. Eyes folded closed and she tried to concentrate. Vrag...Aunt Vrag as she had taken to calling the woman had taught her some minor skills with the force. She was no expert herself, but a small bit of tutelage had allowed Rose to get the gist of what she needed to. Plus the training from her mother was a tremendous help in learning of more advanced force skills.

Though she had no where near the strength of her sister.

Rose concentrated, reaching into the deep black abyss within herself to find that raging river of rage. The force called out to her, and she to it. Like a baby bird she seized it in her hands, grasping gently and forcing the rolling tides to do as she commanded. For a moment, she simply stood, concentrating. She reached out, a torrent of dread that would lap over everything within the factory. It touched and soared...then stopped.

Her eyes snapped open.

“There's someone here.” She said with a scowl. “Shut down the facility.”

 

[Orphen]

Theme

Orphen didn't get far into the factory, looking around as a security alarm was raised, had he been noticed? No-one had seen him, or if they had, they were damn good actors... breaking out into a run, it was time for the Jedi to move with more objectivity as blast doors began to close and his pathways began to hold up, though, doors were not going to be what got in Orphen's path, not today. Were Orphen still in the security room he would likely be able to open himself up a path, or the person he had come here with and guide them to the location of the bounty, but, that would entail he moved backwards, a course of action which would more than likely only result in more time being wasted, so, that left Orphen with the only other option, moving panel by panel and brute forcing himself through the doors in his way with what slicking skills he had, knowing full well it was going to be hard, during most shut down programs, the door controls become isolated, but, that was, in itself, only a program, anything that is connected, can be used, one only needed to have the know-how to do it, and astromech droids were rather good at opening doors and getting into things when they needed to. Running to the first of the doors, he plugged in Alpha, linking the DCD to his datapad wirelessly working through the coding, it was not long before he found the in, there was a program, a safe-guard which allowed cards with administrative access to be able o move freely within the lock-down, turning all of his attention and Alphas on gaining access into that area, the two of them worked together, Alpha attempting to crack the numbers needed, while Orphen created a coding file and began typing furiously to create a quick, cheap, and nasty piece of coding in order to place the information, which would give him a fake administrative access...

the longest thirty seconds of his life passed,

But, leaving a calling card in the coding "Savant" for those good enough to know that he was there, also as bragging rights to other slicers who broke through these similar channels. The deed was done, and access was granted. As the door opened, Orphen stared in disdain as the next room seemed to be more occupied than he would have hoped, each of them looked at him in turn, holding the pistol and the datapad in his hand. Looking to them in turn he rose the gun, and decided to make a break for the next area, moving to the factory, he opened the next door many times faster, breaking into the arena of his choice, the wide open work-station factory in which the droid was being held was impressive, but at this point Orphen's mind was racing, closing the door behind him to give himself a little bit of time, he aimed his blaster at the control panel and fired, creating a nice hole where the circuitry would be. It was only now that Orphen could feel something breathing down the back of his neck through the force... something was here... someone was here. It was that feeling, the hint of the dark-side in the air which filled Orphen with a feeling of fear... it was getting close, deadly close, but first, it would need to get through the door, giving Orphen precious seconds, looking around for a vantage point, he run across the the mainframe, plugging his data-pad in and beginning the slightly lengthy process of ordering Alpha to, through the wireless link, delete all traces of the AI on the Droid which were already there, and copy and upload itself onto the droids' mainframe.

But that would take time... Minutes even...

Looking at the arena around him, Orphen would holster his less lethal fire-arm and position himself in the middle of the room, drawing his two main fire-arms and powering each of them up, waiting for the presence in the force, clouded though it was, to get closer. Orphen had only wished that he was as good at sensing things through the force as other Jedi above and beyond him. Standing in a combat pose, Orphen was ready for what was to come, he would wait for the opponent, and, as the door opened, and he would gaze at the person before him, he would cock his head to one side quizzically as the visor he wore on his head would begin to analyze her, her species, the materials of her clothing, her equipment, everything piece by piece would be picked apart by the data collecting system for Orphen to draw conclusions from. Though, really, the Sith before him, assuming she was with the One Sith... was rather cute, but there was no denying the fear in his throat, this was the first Sith he had ever come across as a Jedi, the only other Sith he had ever seen was the ones which had claimed him for the experiments he had once had to go through. The memories bought on anger for the Epicanthix, as he would continue to have his high tech weapons raised offensively, his fingers hovering over the fingers.

"Hold yourself there... Don't move, and you won't be hurt... Sith..."

Orphen spoke with warning, there was a slight shudder in his voice, but it disappeared before the final syllable, he began to focus, watching her, using this small break to focus on his connection with the force, he was going to need everything he had if he was going to get out of here alive. Though, he was not without some backup, should Alpha be able to complete his task, Orphen would be riding the droid out of here at maximum speed to his ship, and not looking back for a moment.

[member="Rose Kuhn"]

 

[Rose Kuhn]

[member="Orphen"]

Her lips thinned.

The doors were locked, the windows dropped heavy metal shutters, and her entire body began to surge with the force.

Rose had sensed it. She had felt it. She knew she had. She wasn't the best at the sensory aspect of the force, In fact she was one of the worst. Her mother had told her as much when she had begun training her and Lily. Her twin was far better, far stronger in the force. Rose knew that, but she also knew that her instincts were finely honed blades.

Vrag had made sure of that.

She had sensed the Jedi, a Jedi. Her lips turned into a frown, her red hair swiveled down her back, her bright blue glacier eyes shifted all around the room. For a moment she wondered why a Jedi would come here. This facility worked for the Sith, true, but it didn't do any major projects, not any she knew of anyway. She eyed the rat like man that stood nervously in the corner, watching as Rose scanned row after row of factory equipment.

Soldiers began to appear, guards.

Her fingers slowly wrapped around the metal railings on the cat walk, crushing slightly against the durasteel. He was there somewhere, or she. There was a Jedi within the building, she knew there was. “Search every inch.”

Rose's voice was the edge of a cold blade.

 

[Orphen]

[member="Rose Kuhn"]

Orphen had been ready for her to walk throught the door, but she hadn't. his AI was still working on copying its data to the droid, and that was his way out, his drones were set up around the room, and it was time for him to find a more defensible position, drawing his two, slightly more normal heavy blaster pistils he waited, the shouting of the workers nearby would no doubt lead the guards to him soon. It was minutes before he began to hear banging on a nearby blast-door. Moving his hand over his DCD, he ordered his droned to take the high ground in the factory where able, pinning their aim to the door as Orphen knew there was something being set up. He didn't want to fight, this would be the first time he would have ever seen real combat against the one Sith... and it scared him...

Running to the back of the room the progress on the copy was 40%

Orphen ordered his disk drones to fire at will against threats, his AI affirmed and he waited. another minute passed, and the door to his room finally opened, half a dozen guards came in, and from behind a pillar, Orphen had the drones single off against them. Not knowing any other way, and knowing that he needed to survive, he ordered his drones to open fire from the rafters, catching most of them in the initial volley, while, two of them managed to have the reflexes to see the lights moments before they were shot and dive back to cover.

50%

...

 

[Orphen]

The next few moments int he facility would be tense, every moment would feel like an eternity as he would order his drones to move and take up new positions, no longer hovering high in the corners but rather in the middle of each wall looking down towards the door. Each of their cameras were monitoring back to Orphen's DCD which in turn appeared as small security boxes at the side of his screen. The drones had been doing rather well, though it was a sad thing to be bringing each of these men down, they likely had families, they likely had stories of their own, but now, there was an expansive rupture in the blast door which was somewhat of a pain. The Sith here, were not to be trifled with...

60%

The amount of data there was to copy could not be ignored, these people had done a lot of work on this frame, and Orphen intended to take it, and use it for the Republic, something which no doubt could not be allowed. Looking at others peering through the door Orphen levelled his pistols, they probably had no idea that the thief they were dealing with was a Jedi, but rather a theif and a hacker... Orphen could deal with that, Savant was becoming a little more well known throughout the sith, he was certain. Though, probably little more than a rabble rouser, but this was something which may actually gain some attention. As the remaining two soldiers attempted to take a peek into the room, Orphen had his drones fire upon their location, pinning them down as he stood and fired a bolt into a pressure pipe used to lift machinery. The shot cascaded into the pipe filling the area around them with steam in order to cloud vision from the entrance, no longer giving them visual intel on the room he had held up in.

Time was running out, and as the 70% mark came through, he could feel that something even worse was coming closer, but was still some distance away.

 

[Orphen]

Orphen moved down and had his helmet scan the heat signatures in the room, the steam clouded some of it, but he was still able to make out masses which were obviously not a gaseous substance. mooving down to the frame of the droid he was looking to take, it stood about five meters tall and looked like it was more than capable of crushing someone under foot. It had no weapon or armour systems on it yet, but its power system as well as an experimental ion drive was something he was looking forward to. It was basically a core capable of powering a tank, in a five meter tall droid. Not bad for the empire and their minds but it was going to be a small blow. Moving to the system he would begin to hack into the other files these guys were hiding, finding little things here and there, some work they were doing on blaster rifles and some other theory on the side... but mostly, Orphen was just planning to erase everything, delete all data with an algerythm which would hunt down for key words and delete all files containing them. Namely the term blaster, Ion, Thermal, Droid and the various names for ships. This hunter killer virus would be perfect, but, it would take a little bit of time to cook.

Not too long though.

80%

Tyoing furiously, Orphen made his way past coded walls and into the administration panel of the system, moving into the admins file searching panel before bringing up another browser and beginning to type in the code, messing with the systems coding to consider programs containing these words as hostile aliens to the system, and removing them like viruses. As Viruses, unlike deleted data, are not saved into the isolated permanent file within the computers' database... why would you? So, Orphen worked, feeling the darkness move closer like the boogyman breathing down the back of his neck and making him feel more uncomfortable than he had ever felt in his life.

He needed to get out of here, there was no way he was able to stay and finish this off....

90%

So close, but the evil clouded smog in the force he could feel approaching was little more than just around the corner...

 

[Orphen]

The input of the program was completed, and Orphen pulled out like a Zeltron with a Twilek hooker. Packing up as the clock on the download hit 100% and the frame was good to go, pulling up all of the files it seemed that now, with these Alpha would be able to integrate with the wireless droid. Taking a chord and plugging it into the droid's AI brain, he hooked Alpha up to it, booting the droid body to life and under his control, looking at the cargo elevator used for this thing to be able to move in and out of the facility, Orphen charged it down ordering the droid to follow as the system and data which was once part of the facility began to cannibalize itself violently. Aiming his weapon and firing at the screen in the room but missing the processor and the hard drive, he would make it impossible for scientists to be able to counter his actions on that terminal. It was time to escape.

Calling for his ship, he boarded the Droid body, riding it as he reached the top of the elevator, soldiers there ready to attack but not expecting the five meter tall mechanical behemoth to be there also, charging them head on the machine obliterated their defensive line and made a run for it, Orphen firing back blaster bolts in retaliation as they ran, laughing all the while like a giddy school child who just got away with knocking over a liquor store. He had taken something from the sith, and with that, he exited the scene and made a bee line for his ship, the machine diving into the holding bay and him running for the cockpit as fast as he could muster, knowing that his enemies would be on bikes or other transport in hot pursuit.

Hoping to get that one step closer, Orphen looked up at the stars above, checking for the route he had to take and priming the ion thrusters as the repulsorlift generators began to lift the ship up into the air... Orphen could see those chasing him down now, almost upon him, weapons aimed as blaster rifles fired at him in the sky, hoping to hit a critical location on the ship, but, before they had the chance to, Orphen took flight, leaving them all in the dust with nothing but an empty drive of nothing and a bad story to tell their superiors.

Later than night his havoc had been posted on the news, that a terrorist calling himself Savant had broken into a research facility, stealing experimental heath and reconessaince technology, leaving several men dead and more injured in his wake. Logging onto holonet, bouncing his signal off a dozen different planets with at least seven layers of encryption, Savant logged in. People were a buzz looking for the truth of the story. To which Orphen posted images saved from his headset of the place, weapons, and the war droid frame he stole and deleted everything of.

The GR media would respond with stories about how a renegade hacker and activist thwarted dangerous military hardware in the space of the one sith, and give detailed images of the technology and tell a much more convincing story overall...

This was a victory,

So, opening a bottle of wine on the way home, Orphen celebrated... but it was time to go home.

[exit thread]